


Mistaken for a Dawn

by ebonynemesis



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Otabek needs a hug, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, mentions of Victor/Yuri K., real life is a bitch, reality of sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 11:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14914689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebonynemesis/pseuds/ebonynemesis
Summary: Yuri Plisetsky is a maelstrom of fire and lightning, Otabek was doomed from the very start.A decade of Otabek’s career as an ice skater and its single catalyst: Yuri Plisetsky.





	Mistaken for a Dawn

#### He’s 13—

—his bones stiff, his joints rolling into his body like gnarly twigs, pain shooting up his muscles as he willed them to stretch beyond their capacity, and the ballet teacher is screaming at him.

‘You, big guy, in the back, stop looking around and focus!’

He feels like a crippled old man next to the limber and jittery kids in the novice class, none of them seem older than 10. He looks behind and is greeted by austere eyes, pale wheat coloured hair framing an even paler complexion, delicate features and colourless eyelashes, like the angels in those Catholic churches in Western Europe he’d once read about in a picture book. But, the eyes, piercing and fierce, like those of a predator, the cool shade of green like the colour of water in the mountain lake on a brisk winter morning from back home.

The kid behind him is not even up to his shoulder, and he turns his face upwards as his legs and arm stretch and his entire body elongates into the arabesque, even his fingers are poised, like it’s turned steel.

Then those predatory eyes catch him and squint into a frown. ‘The hell are you staring at.’ The kid snaps. ‘Idiot.’

‘Yuri Plisetsky!’ The ballet teacher bellows, ‘I will not tolerate this kind of language in my classroom. And you,’ she points at Otabek, ‘stop doing that with your legs, you look like a duck.’

For years the burn of humiliation accompanied the sight of Yuri for Otabek, whenever he saw him on TV he would feel a sudden rush of nausea as if he were back in that classroom, with kids three years younger than him, pointing and laughing at Otabek while Yuri turned and turned and turned like a magnetic figure on the mirrored surface of the music-box, his arms and legs extending almost surreally in the vectors of the afternoon sun filtered through the tall windows of the studio, like the spiritual manifestation of perfection.

 

*

 

#### He’s 14—

—his first and last year in the junior league qualifiers, the cool Montreal autumn plucking brittle fiery leaves from their branches as he stares at the ranking announcement displayed on the big screen above the gates of the entrance, his name at the bottom, the pale blue and the yellow sun of his country’s flag eclipsed by horizontal stripes upon horizontal stripes of white, blue and red.

The light of the skating rink was blinding, dimming even the dusk sky outside the window.

A commotion behind him, and he sees a tall figure with silver hair emerging from the rink. Victor Nikiforov, he thinks, annunciating the words in his mind feels blasphemous, like he’s uttering the name of something pious.

‘Victor!’ A voice rings out from the distance, and a small figure weaves through the camera flashes and coat tails of the reporters like a small comet.

Otabek recognises the figure almost in an instant, Yuri Plisetsky from the camp he attended last year. Victor seems to have anticipated the attack and catches Yuri by the arm with ease, effectively stopping the child from latching onto his leg. Victor bends to say something quietly to Yuri, his silver hair falling into his face in soft arches.

Yuri laughs, Otabek feels a physical pull towards the sound, like a rare heat wave in a dry summer, as if the very air he breathe is warmed by it.  

Yuri runs past him on his way to find whomever Victor had obviously asked for him to find, he looks over at Otabek for an instant, lake-green eyes staring directly at Otabek blankly, with minimal interest and no recognition, before turning away and continuing on his path.   

Only after he’s disappeared around the corner does Otabek notice that Victor is also gone, and there is only him left, under the glaring light, facing the reality of his failures, and clenching his fists so hard he can feel his own nails break the skin on his palm.

 

*

 

#### He’s 15—

—still adapting to the surprisingly hot summer in Seattle, when he sees Yuri Plisetsky again, not in person. On TV, waving a bouquet of yellow roses above his head, even on the highest podium, the silver and bronze winners that flanked Yuri tower over him. Between them, Yuri is grinning, his canines sharp and gleaming in the refracted light from his medal, his cheeks flushed and sweat sliding down the curves of his face from the blonde strands matted at his temples.

His coach approaches Otabek from behind, watching the video over Otabek’s shoulder. ‘Quite a monster, that one, huh?’

Otabek suddenly has an urge to skate, to feel the ice give away beneath his skates as he picks up speed and prepares for a jump. He digs his fingernails into his palms, into the small indents of scars running all along the heel of his palms from cuts on the ice.

His coach, after receiving no response, gives Otabek a pat on his back before leaving him alone to watch the award ceremony.

On the screen, Yuri runs straight past his coach towards Victor Nikiforov, who picks Yuri up and spins him, a concentric circular blur of silver and gold hair and flower petals.  

 

*

 

#### He’s 16—

—and leaving Seattle for another scholarship. The sports program in his high school was terminated over the summer break, and he was lucky enough to have scrambled together an application for a school on the east coast. Now he’s heading to New York, a five hour flight and his life packed into one big suitcase and one small suitcase which he has for carry-on.

A man leaves behind a pile of newspaper and he reaches for the sports section. Yuri Plisetsky’s name looks less elegant in latin alphabet, and his face looks less real in print, but even with the extreme pixelation Otabek can still pick up the frown on the young champion’s face, as if he’s unhappy with how the newspaper has chosen to reduce the size of his photograph to such blurred quality.

Otabek struggles through the article, he’s always been terrible at English. Most of the article is about Victor Nikiforov, who has managed to secure another international title for the fourth consecutive year and quickly establishing himself as an institution in figure skating. Yuri Plisetsky is a side mention next to Victor, an indication to the boundless amount of talent emerging from Russia, alongside his name were names of other Russian skaters who’ve managed to secure medals in the GPF.

Otabek leans his head back, the summer winds in Seattle caresses with a buttery smoothness of cool undertow from the glaciers, almost like a placating touch.

Otabek is glad to leave it behind.

 

*

 

#### He’s 17—

—his father has come to visit from Almaty for some reason. Otabek is not sure, he’s too busy wallowing in yet another missed opportunity for a place in the GPF, despite winning a place on the podium in his home rink in Montreal at the Skate Canada next to Victor Nikiforov himself.

His father is silent, presence unignorable as his coach yells at him for flobbing the landing. Otabek grits his teeth and imagines the ice beneath him as an enemy that he must conquer. In his head he’s replaying Yuri Plisetsky’s flawless routine which won him his third gold in the Junior division. Next year, Yuri will be on the ice with him, in the senior division, if Otabek makes it there at all.

He falls and slips across the ice, the skin on his chin scraping painfully against the cold. His coach is rushing over. Otabek hears a commotion from across the rink, his father stands up, leaning over the seats anxiously postured.

Otabek flushes, his face heating with the same rush of humiliation from the ballet class four years ago, the blood scalding as it rushes out of the scrape on his chin. He pushes away his coach’s dabbing hands, ‘I’m fine.’ He says as he skates away staring at his own split shadows beneath him on the white of the rink, the blood drips from his face onto the ice, leaving a shameful crimson trail.

His father takes him to dinner and Otabek chooses a quiet and cheap spot in the university district. There’s no conversation over halal platter and tasteless machine-blended hummus.

He can’t bring himself to look up at his father’s face, he feels that he doesn’t deserve it. Not after being kicked out of that school in New York for scoring too low on his IELTs, not after the defeats and low rankings of this season and not after all those years of unanswered letters and unreturned voicemails.

The skin on his father’s hands sag against protrusions of bone and knuckles, more pale spots mar the otherwise tanned complexion than he remembered. Otabek feels intruded upon. He wishes nothing more than for his father to leave.

He walks his father back to the hotel, even though it is three kilometres away from his dorm. His father asks him whether he’s coming to the airport to see him off tomorrow and Otabek struggles to find an excuse.

His father reaches out and gently touch him on the shoulder, the first physical touch of the evening.

Otabek wants to block out the unconveyed support from that touch, he doesn’t deserve it, he hasn’t earned it.  

He pretends that he’s jogging back to his dorm when he all but runs away from the hotel. Sprinting for his life from the unwarranted attention and concern with wind cutting into the scrape on his chin. He takes off his jacket and then his t-shirt when he gets into the dorm room without turning on the light. Heaving in gulps and gulps acrid copper air.

For the first time in four months, the bare essentials of furnishing and unpacked luggage feels like a semblance of home.

He’s used to solitude, he thinks, he’s better suited for it.

 

*

 

#### He’s 18—

—and hires the Harley in Barcelona, picking it out from amongst a myriad of flashy Japanese sport models and petite Italian scooters. The store clerk is ecstatic, Spanish or Catalan expressions blubbering forth, mixing with her heavily accented English. He hands her his coach’s credit card just to shut her up.

For December the city is abnormally green, dense tropical leaves illuminated by soft pockets of light that seep through the leaves fluttering with the breeze. Vined flowers blossom across Christmas decorations in some bizarre juxtaposition of seasons. And Yuri Plisetsky is somehow in harmony with the thriving city, his steely grimace softened by the glow of the sunset glinting off the colourfully polished tiles.

Otabek clenches his fist until he feels the pain in his palms from his fingernails pressing into the now familiar scar tissue, trying to ground himself in the reality. But the brilliant splashes of colour across the sunset distorts the certainty of the moment. Yuri’s hand, bony, smooth, with hot palm grips his own in a vice hold, his face lit up by the prospect of becoming friends, his green eyes tinted with the gold of the sunset all feels too much like a dream.

The wind picks up Yuri’s hair and Otabek is caught up with a sudden urge to smooth it back, and has to let go of Yuri’s hand in order to collect himself.

 

*

 

#### He’s 19—

—and doesn’t manage to qualify for the GPF but he goes to Prague to support Yuri anyway, claiming that it’s convenient as Prague is close enough to Kazakhstan, like he didn’t have an awful 12 hour changeover in Kiev. It’s worth it though to sees Yuri give him that slight smile and a small hand wave in acknowledgement from the podium. Yuri’s costume is green and white, Otabek had read an online article commenting that it made him look like a cabbage, but on the ice Yuri looks like a spring shoot amongst the melting snow, full of upwards force, breaking the barrier of weight and force as he performs his newly perfected quad toe loop with unbridled passion.

It’s not enough to dislodge Victor Nikiforov from winning gold though. Otabek notices the visible shove Yuri gives Victor when Victor pulls Yuri close for a photo on the podium.

Otabek goes to search for Yuri when he hears Yakov calling Yuri’s name after the award ceremony. He almost bumps into him, curled up in the corner next to the men’s bathrooms, his slight frame blending into the shadows and the silver medal dangling from his fingertips and his head bent over his phone. Otabek kneels close and tilts Yuri’s face up. Yuri begins to push him away until he realises who is there.

‘Hi…’ Yuri greets him, voice hoarse, make-up streaking from the sweat still beading down his temples.Otabek notices black circles under Yuri’s eyes.

Otabek pushes Yuri’s hair out of the way. ‘You need dinner, then rest.’

Yuri chuckles, his shoulders slumped from exhaustion. ‘You’re always so insistent with your requests.’

Otabek simply drags Yuri up by his arms. ‘Coming, not coming?’

Yuri shakes Otabek’s hand off, bouncing on his toes. ‘Only if you sneak me into a bar.’

They end up eating goulash in a hole-in-the-wall cafe near old-town and Otabek orders Turkish coffee instead of wine.

Yuri wrinkles his nose at the acute bitter smell and pouts when Otabek won’t order him a glass of alcohol, and is only appeased when Otabek buys him kremrole for dessert which Yuri devours, getting flakes of pastry and flecks of cream all over his face as they walk down the deserted banks of Vltava.

There are few people out on the streets in the biting cold of the December evening despite the fact that night is clear with a bright moon. The snow is crisp and crunches beneath Yuri’s tiger print gumboots. Yuri seems unaffected by the cold in his jacket and tight jeans. Otabek wraps his own parker closer to himself. Yuri is animatedly describing his past few months cohabitating with Yuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov in Victor’s apartment. He stops talking when they reach Charles bridge, the water of the Vltava rushing noisily past the aqueduct despite the middle of the winter, Yuri leans over the ledge of the bridge between two statues to stare at the water in awe.  

‘We should go there.’ Yuri points at the castle perched on top of the hill illuminated softly by the orange lights like it’s a lit candle.

‘Pretty sure it’s closed.’ Otabek replies, Yuri’s hair is shadowed with moisture, and it curls messily against the fur-lined collar of his studded bomber jacket with a giant tiger patch across his shoulder blades.        

Yuri grabs his hand and Otabek feels the world pulse with the skip of his heartbeat.

‘We’ll come back when it’s open then, some other time, I hear there’s a super creepy church on that hill.’

Otabek squeezes Yuri’s fingers in return, and he thinks he sees a faint blush across Yuri’s nose and cheeks, Otabek decides to dismiss it as an illusion of the streetlights, or just a flush from the cold.

 

*

 

#### He’s 20 —

—and earning a medal for the Worlds for the first time. Yuri has grown over the year, and he surpasses Otabek on the elevated podium. Jean-Jacque Leroy flashes him his winning grin from the other side of Yuri, his wedding band glinting as he holds the medal up. He raises his hands to acknowledge JJ when Yuri suddenly leans over and buries his face in Otabek’s shoulder.

Yuri’s entire body is rigid, as if he was still taut with unspent energy. Otabek stills, and slowly raises a hand to pat Yuri on the back. Yuri’s hair cascades over both of them, the plastic wrapping of his bouquet cackles between them as it gets squished from the force of Yuri’s embrace.

Yuri lets him go and steps off the podium, stalking to the change rooms, the Russian flag bunched in his arms as the cameras continue flashing on the back of his head.

It’s only later, when Otabek has finally gotten rid of the reporters that he finds Yuri in the changerooms, forehead pressed against the shut door of an occupied shower stall like he’s having trouble straightening, still wearing his outfit and the uniform hoodie.

‘Your coach is going to start…’ Otabek begins to speak then stops abruptly. From within the steam of the occupied stall there’s a shuffling against the wood of the stalls and then a quiet human sound like a breath or a groan, more than one, two…

Otabek glares at Yuri, incredulous that he’s eavesdropping on something like this. And then he realises that Yuri’s head is dipped low, tucked almost between his knees as he sits there on his heels, his face bowed, hidden within the curtains of long wheat hair. Yuri’s shoulders are shaking, his fingers stroking the closed door as if he’s trying to find purchase.

Otabek kneels down next to Yuri. He doesn’t hesitate when he reaches out and tucks Yuri’s hair behind his ears to see the streams of tears rolling down Yuri’s face.

‘Victor…’ a moan resounds out of the shower stalls that Otabek recognises is Yuri Katsuki. He feels like he’s intruding, gaining insight into something of which he shouldn’t be aware. He puts one hand under Yuri Plisetsky’s arm and Yuri rises to his feet, boneless as he follows the gentle guiding force of Otabek’s hands.

Otabek leads Yuri away from the shower stalls and sits him down on the bench, Yuri’s feet, bruised skin peeking out from beneath entirely too much bandages curl up on the rubber mats of the stalls. Otabek stands to go and retrieve the change of clothing from Yuri’s locker when Yuri grabs his sleeve, pulling him to sit down next to Yuri.

Yuri throws his arms around Otabek before he’s even able to sit properly, his arm crushing against Otabek’s collarbone, fingers clawing their way into Otabek’s uniform jacket. Up close Otabek can smell Yuri, and Yuri smells like the ice.

Yuri’s body is shaking against his own so he raises an arm and encircle Yuri’s tapered waist, pulling Yuri close until he’s plastered against Otabek’s side. The moaning from the shower stalls doesn’t reach them here in the empty and vast rows of benches and lockers.

Yuri Plisetsky is making a mess of his uniform, rubbing his wet face on the shoulder as he twists the fabric out of shape with his hands. His lithe body quakes with each unsteady sob that he buries into Otabek’s nape. Yuri’s gold medal squished against the two of them, digging into Otabek’s side, eliciting soreness from a fading bruise.

The lights dim outside, the staff must have finished cleaning the now empty arena. Otabek is surprised that no one else has burst into the change rooms looking for either of them. And even though there is a couple in the shower-stalls not ten metres away, and Otabek can hear faint noises from the stadium and streets seeping through to the change-rooms via the air-vents and the seams of the door, the way Yuri Plisetsky is clinging to him makes Otabek feel like they’re the only two people left in the world, here amongst the echoey emptiness of the changerooms, the bench on which they are sitting is a lonely raft floating in a void, edgeless skating rink of endless white.

Somehow, it still feels like Otabek is intruding.  

 

*

 

#### He’s 21—

—and just got his own apartment and full licence and finding a life in Almaty. He returns from practice to find Yuri sprawled across his bed in his new apartment, hoodie riding up to show a sliver of ivory skin above his jeans as he mashes his fingers against the screen of Otabek’s portable gaming console.  

‘I hate this game.’ Yuri declares when the game-over music plays over the image of his character’s dead body.

Otabek sits on the bed next to him, the light glints off Yuri’s pale gold hair splayed across the bed. ‘I’ve more games in the bookshelf.’

Yuri springs up, flipping his hair out of the way. ‘Well, they all suck. I can’t believe I came all the way over here to visit you and I’m stuck in your apartment playing games. Why do you have such intensive training during off-season anyway.’

Otabek bites back a smile, ‘My choreographer is returning to Paris on Monday, I didn’t know you were coming. If you told me beforehand I would’ve rescheduled.’

‘It hardly counts as a surprise if I told you, no?’ Yuri grins, his toes curl up on the hardwood floor. A breeze catches Yuri’s hair and blows it across his face, Yuri has opened all the windows in Otabek’s apartment and the mountain air gusts through his room. Sunlight bleaches Yuri’s features—his skin looking almost transparent. Otabek has never realised how bright his place is during the day.

‘Well, I’m free for the rest of today. Do you have anything in mind?’

Yuri looks out the window, the peaks of Ili-Alatau rises from above the metropolis, its snow caps a jagged white edge against the celeste summer sky. ‘Hey, isn’t there a giant lake up in those mountains?’

Otabek notices the elongating shadows of the city, ‘It’s a bit of a trek, you need at least a day to and back.’

Yuri’s smile falters, ‘Oh, well, I guess that’s something for me to do tomorrow.’

Otabek nods, ‘I can help you plan it tonight.’

Yuri sports a look so foreign it’s almost like it doesn’t belong there—Otabek’s caught that fleeting expression once too many times by now—the vacant, slack-lipped stare on Yuri, who’s slamming doors in his mind and occluding his own thoughts.

Yuri blinks and the expression of enthusiasm returns, masking whatever managed to slipped out. ‘Let’s go out for dinner tonight. Do you want to? Don’t you want to?’ He mimics Otabek’s syntax.

Otabek agrees and Yuri jumps off the bed to find his socks. Otabek smoothes the indent on his duvet cover where Yuri has been, stroking it as if he would with Yuri’s hair.

Yuri’s calling for Otabek from the doorway, Otabek considers skipping practice tomorrow to take Yuri up the mountains in his bike. To confirm if the lake water is truly the same shade of green as Yuri’s eyes.

 

*

 

#### He’s 22—

—and suffering through one of the coldest winter in his life in St. Petersburg, cold rashes on his ears and cracked cuticles under his gloves despite bundling himself up against what seems to be an endless snowstorm. To make matters worse, Yuri Plisetsky, who has overtaken Otabek in height, is now fuming as he races across the ice, his skates crossing over each other in almost a single straight lines from one end of the rink to the other.

Yuri’s no longer the fiery teenager but his anger is no less potent, except now it’s less explosive but lasts longer. He slams into the barrier with his torso and collapse onto the ice, Otabek can’t tell if he did it on purpose.

Otabek walks onto the ice with careful steps, his sneakers making squeaking noises in the wetness left behind by Yuri’s skates. Yuri pulls himself up and leans against the railing, his forehead kneaded into a frown, his arms crossed over his pecs.

Without his skates, Otabek finds himself actually having to look up to meet Yuri’s eyes.

‘It’s just a suggestion.’

‘It’s a shit suggestion.’ Yuri snaps. ‘And I’m not doing it. And you’re not doing it either.’

‘Yuri…’

Yuri stomps out of the rink, grabs his skate guards and slaps them on loudly. ‘Look, if Victor Nikiforov wants to wank his own fucking ego and pretend to be still relevant then he can do it without my help, or yours for that matter.’

Otabek wipes the bottom of his feet on the mat as he follows Yuri to the change rooms. Yuri peels off his sweat-soaked training top. Otabek catches a glimpse of cream coloured skin stretched over the protruding ribs of Yuri’s rake-thin back as the black material lifts away and whips his head around.

Otabek stares at his shoes. He knows that Victor lives with Yuri Katsuki here in St Petersburg, somewhere out there amongst modern Stalinist apartment blocks with austere edges. But in his month-long stay here he’s never once seen Victor step foot on Yuri’s home-rink, nor did Yuri mention anything about visiting him. Today is the first time Victor is mentioned in their conversation.

It may be the fact that they are both coached by Yakov, but Otabek sees Victor in Yuri’s skating, the same extension of limbs that seem almost humanly impossible, only Victor does it with liquidsmooth grace and Yuri blazes through his routines like he’s flame licking the ice. The shadows grow darker between Yuri’s eyebrows ever since Victor’s retirement announcement almost two years ago. Yuri continues to effulge with heat and light. Otabek wonders if Yuri sees Victor in his own routines. And if Yuri ever thinks about the man who is the reason why Yuri took up skating. I wonder if you miss him. He thinks, looking at Yuri pull his hair out from his shirt and tie it into a low ponytail.

‘I don’t,’ Yuri speaks up. Otabek realises that he had spoken his last thought aloud. ‘I’ve broken all of his records twice over now, there’s no reason for me to miss him or that pork cutlet with whom he decided to elope.’

Yuri’s dressed in grey jeans and a gaudy jacket with golden embellishments. ‘We’re going to lunch.’ He announces.

‘Taxi?’ Otabek suggests.

Yuri flashes his sharp canines in a predatory grin, ‘What, afraid of my driving?’

‘Just not up to pushing your car out of a ditch for the third time this week.’ Otabek purses his lips, ‘Also it’s freezing in a convertible, even with the top up.’ Yuri merely wraps his muffler around his face, Otabek can still see the catlike grin that crinkles Yuri’s eyes.  

‘Fine, you coward, we’ll take the bus like commoners. Trust me if you don’t like my driving you won’t like that of taxi drivers in St Petersburg.’

They step outside into glaring sunlight refracted by the blanketing white, the sky has cleared up and the city twinkles amongst piles and piles of shiny snow.

‘Let’s walk instead,’ Yuri says, ‘it’s not too far.’

They leave side by side trails of footprints across the sidewalk where residents and council hired labourers are shoveling snow. Otabek pushes the hood of his overcoat off his head, with the sun shining down on them, the sea breeze is almost bearable.

Yuri as usual seem unaffected by the cold, his leggings hugging his thighs and hips and his hands gloveless, as stubborn and inexorable as the white-bark aspens in the mountains near his hometown.

‘We should at least visit them while I’m here.’

Yuri stops, glaring at Otabek with cheeks flushed red with cold. ‘What is even the point in doing that? Besides, they’re always running off to Hasetsu to stay in the onsen during winter so chances are they’re not even in the city.’ Yuri kicks at a compressed piece of snow beneath his boots. ‘Why do you even care anyway, they’re just some fat and balding old farts.’

Yuri draws figure eights in the snow with the tip of his boots. The silence heavy like a sudden onslaught of low pressure. The horizon darkens with grey clouds, it looks like the snow is closing in again.

 

*

 

#### He’s 23.

It’s the worst way to spend his birthday, he thinks, as the nurse takes the barf bag from him and gives him one of her polite smiles. Otabek barely manages a nod in return, and lets himself collapse against the pillows once she’s out of the room.

His head is swimming in a haze and the only lucid feeling is the pain in his legs, the painkillers muffling out other sensations, makes the pain less acute, but more prominent, dominating his consciousness as a fresh wave of nausea through his body like a tidal wave.

Yuri Plisetsky bursts in through the open door, his hair cropped and asymmetrical, his face pale and sweating, his green eyes wide and his pupils retracted to a dark dot amongst lake-green, Otabek thinks it’s the first time he’s seen Yuri’s whole face unobstructed by bangs.  

Otabek is too shocked to even offer a greeting. ‘Your hair... you cut it.’ He says thick tongued.

‘Forget about my hair.’ Yuri snaps, ‘What is all this? Why didn’t you tell me?’

Otabek thinks Yuri is too bright, like a source of light. The colours and vivacity makes his nausea worse, so he stares at his own hands instead. Yuri peels off his coat and pulls up a chair. ‘I didn’t find out until after the tournament. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Otabek looks at Yuri’s new hairstyle, it suits him, the blond hair thin and plastered against his skull, framing his heart-shaped face. ‘It suits you.’

Yuri opens his mouth, his eyebrows bunching together. ‘What are you even saying? I’m asking you why didn’t you tell me about your leg, and the operations! You were still competing in September, how did it get this serious!’

It could be due to the unguarded expression on his face, or the now unobstructed forehead but Yuri still looks more like a teenager than a world champion, though the ribbon around his neck peeking out from the collar of his jacket grounds the fact. ‘Congratulations by the way, without me there you basically mopped the ice with the others.’

Yuri punches him on the arm. ‘Will you just talk to me damn it!?’

Otabek looks out the window, at the bare trees and the snowy mountains in the distance and at the reflection of Yuri’s face superimposed on the glass. ‘I didn’t know what to say to you, Yuri.’ He feels the weight of Yuri’s stare on his skin like the prickling sensation of sunburn.

Yuri pales, ‘Don’t know how to tell me? I thought we were friends, Otabek! How hard is it to pick up the phone and let me know that you were having surgery.’

Otabek counts the small incisions on the back of his own hand where the nurses have attached the IV in the past few days. ‘I didn’t know what to tell you. I didn’t want to distract you right before the competition.’

Yuri just stares at Otabek who’s refusing to meet his stare. ‘You could’ve at least said something to me…’ When Otabek doesn’t respond, Yuri folds his arms across his chest and paces back and forth at the foot of Otabek’s bed. His legs straight like he’s marching.

‘Well?’ Yuri breaks the silence abruptly. ‘How bad is it?’

Otabek bites his lips, pondering the words before they leave him. ‘Hard to say, the doctors says they’ll need to see how I recover from this one before they can decide if further reconstruction is needed…’

Yuri bashes his hand on the wall, the windows clang from the force. Otabek closes his eyes to stop his head from spinning.

‘More surgery?!’ Yuri snaps, ‘Just how serious is your leg that you need more than one surgery! You were training with me in St. Petersburg last winter! Why didn’t you say anything, Beka.’

Otabek finally lets himself take in Yuri with his eyes. Yuri’s cheeks were flushed and his eyebrows furrowed, his nostrils flared and his lips thin. He’s wearing the red and white Russian team jacket on top of black leggings, his thin figure casting sharp shadows against the white walls of the hospital. Yuri tangles long fingers together, knuckles prominent and scored with pale lines of scars.

How is he able to say anything to this Yuri in front of him, fresh from the competition, still sporting a patch of glitter on the bottom lid of his left eye, with steel gaze and fisted hands and back as straight as a ruler. Otabek clenches his fist, feels for the scars lining the heel of his palms, the words bubbling away in his throat, the pain in his legs shooting up his spine.

Otabek lets out a breath and studies the trees outside the window again. Yuri sighs heavily, leaning against the door, nursing the side of his hand and the outer edge little finger which had impacted the wall.   

The afternoon sunlight shines on the silence between them. Yuri’s hair curls against his skull and looks impossibly soft. The painkillers might be kicking in because Otabek wants to touch it with his hands.

He reaches out his hand absent-mindedly and Yuri leaps to his side. ‘Are you ok? Do you need anything?’ The anger in his voice suppressed, covered over by concern.

‘I … want to touch your hair.’ The painkillers are definitely permeating through his blood now, and he wants to stuff the words back into his mouth when Yuri’s eyes widen at the unexpected request.

After a breath, just as Otabek is ready to apologise for voicing such an outrageous and inappropriate sentiment and blame it on the painkillers, Yuri kneels down on one knee beside his bed, and ducks his head slightly.

Otabek gives in, runs his fingers through the strands-fine and soft, like kitten fur, threading them through pale wheat warmth. Yuri leans into his touch.

‘I think I kind of love this.’ He says, hovering his hand on the top of Yuri’s head so the ends of the hair pin-pricks against his palm, like the grains of velvet. ‘You look good.’

Yuri only frowns, ‘Otabek, w-what does this mean?’

Otabek sighs, not even the feel of Yuri’s hair can distract from the pain. ‘I don’t know.’

‘C-can you…’ Yuri shakes his head, Otabek can still see the curved trajectory of phantom wheat strands if Yuri still sported them, his short hair makes him look simultaneously older and more delicate, as if the already slight figure is losing essence, his voice sounds equally hollow and distant to Otabek barely above a whisper, as Yuri rephrases the question: ‘w-when will you be back?’

The sun cuts through two of them and imprints vectors of darkness amidst dust and sterilised hospital air. And the stuffiness in his chest blocks the words he cannot voice. Instead, Otabek gives what he hopes to be a reassuring smile but knows there’s no point in more denial or deceit.

‘Beka?’ Yuri whispers, hoarsely, his eyes glimmering with something strange and unseen, something almost resembling uncertainty, or fear.

Otabek can’t look at him anymore, his eyes are stinging as well, as if he had been looking directly into the sun.

‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know.’ He feels the shudder through Yuri’s body when understanding dawns in the unguarded, uncovered face.

‘No…’ Colour drains from the sharp, unobstructed face.

‘You’re—you’ll be back on the ice with me, I can’t, Beka, tell me…’ Yuri’s voice cracks, ‘Beka, tell me it isn’t true!’

Otabek opens his mouth but the lump in his throat is too big for him to even breathe around, let alone force his voice through.

Yuri covers his mouth, and Otabek is shocked to see shiny streaks snake their way down the sharp cheekbones and gather at the sharp jawbone in droplets. The light distorts, invading the air between them in opaque rays, Otabek blinks, but can’t make the vectors partially obstructing his view of Yuri Plisetsky disappear, and as they turn from lines into hexagons in front of him the image of Yuri splits up and Otabek whips his head around to blink away the prism.

Suddenly, thin arms loop around Otabek’s back, twisting Otabek’s hospital gown in his hands as Yuri throws himself, awkward across Otabek’s leg cast.  

Otabek stills as Yuri buries his face in Otabek’s shoulder, so tense that each fiber of his being seems to be vibrating, from the strands of his hair to his fingers which are bunched at his side beneath the covers. Reverberating with the same strain and pain and high-strummed embarrassment not dissimilar to the heat-rush he had felt the first time he met Yuri in that ballet classroom in Moscow, all those years ago—

Same unattainable form, same limbs and joints and flesh and tendons disappointing him, failing him as he looks on at the golden-haired apotheosis of perfection.    

Carefully, Otabek tucks his chin against Yuri’s nape, where the soft strands of hair meet the polyester of his competitive jacket, and lets himself be deluged by the solidity of pain.

 

*

 

#### He’s still 23—

—Though he feels like he’s lived more than a year in the past few days. Yuri Plisetsky has not left his side ever since that afternoon he burst into Otabek’s room with clipped hair, and now, weeks later, he’s still here, the ends of his hair growing out and curling in unruly flares. He’s already missed the Four Continents and about to decide to withdraw from the Worlds as well and had flat out dismissed Otabek’s concern whenever he had brought it up. Their arguments had been won by Yuri solely on the grounds that Otabek usually can’t stay awake long enough to finish their conversation, and when he wakes again, Yuri would ignore and refuse to acknowledge the previous discussion at all.

Otabek himself is still battling with bad reactions from the anaesthetics, along with dealing with a low fever accompanied of course by the physical presence of pain, but he has found a relatively lucid afternoon when he asked Yuri to take him for a walk around the grounds of the hospital, and Yuri, begrudgingly, had agreed.

The summer sun makes its descent in the brilliant cerulean sky as Yuri looks to the quiet and distant mountains. Otabek wonders if he misses the oceans of St. Petersburg, or the echoes of noise in his home rink.

‘Yura,’ He tries once again, they are in the middle of a disagreement that is getting stale with the amount of times they have voiced various iterations of their differing opinions.

‘No Otabek, I’m not going back to St. Petersburg. How could I possibly focus on the upcoming competitions knowing you are under general anesthesia with some nails sticking out of your bones. Can you please just drop it?’ Yuri files his hair behind his ears where the strands have escaped, the wind catching the unruly ends of the pale hair reminds Otabek of Barcelona, of the first time he introduced himself to Yuri Plisetsky, of the first time they competed against each other. Time and exertion hasn’t managed to leave any visible marks on Yuri’s face, but his eyes are duller than they were mere weeks ago, and Otabek can tell, each time he’s wheeled into the OR, each time he goes under, he wakes to Yuri’s eyes losing a little bit more shine, hardening, like he’s being held under the gaze of a gorgon and being turning, very slowly, into stone.

‘Just, concentrate on relaxing and recovery.’ Yuri says, frowning.

‘Do you know how insipid it is tell someone to relax? It achieves the opposite result.’

Yuri gives him a half smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Otabek sighs, wheels himself next to a park bench and indicates for Yuri to sit beside him. Yuri hesitates, then complies, folding long legs atop each other and twisting his ankles together. Otabek reaches and touches Yuri’s hands folded in his lap, which have softened due to the months of mitigated training. Otabek knows that Yuri sneaks off to the ice rinks when Otabek is unconscious, but it’s uncomparable to the amount of training Yuri usually does during competitive season.

At the lack of resistance from Yuri, Otabek takes Yuri’s fingers within his own, stroking the long thin appendages and tracing the knuckles gently. Yuri’s breath turns shallow as he looks at Otabek’s hands, neither of them willing to lift their heads.

‘Do you remember the year when we first competed against each other?’ Otabek begins, grazing the corner of his lips with a small smile. ‘In Barcelona? You skated to a short program that was meant to be one of Victor’s routines, and when you won your first title they called you _‘the next generation’s Viktor Nikiforov’_ in the papers.’

Yuri tries to pull his hand out from Otabek’s grasp, ‘Beka, what does this have to do with…’

But Otabek squeezes instead, until Yuri stops struggling, before continuing after taking another breath:

‘They never thought that in five years Viktor would be called _‘the Plisetsky of the last decade’_. You’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations, even your coach has trouble believing what a monster he has let loose onto the ice. Not even retracting your country can stop you from sweeping up at the Olympics, the fans think you are some kind of deity, the rest of the skating community think you’ve redefined the sport, there’s talks in ISC about overhauling the rules because someone like you exists. All the young skaters, they… you’ve changed them, and they know that, so now they are trying to achieve different things out of the sport, because of you.’

‘Beka…’

‘And me, as well, Yura.’

Yuri lifts his head, holding Otabek’s gaze as his expression tightens, his fingers limp in Otabek’s hold, forgotten.

Otabek tastes the acrid words on his tongue, ‘Though, I’ve always had problems—there are people who are born to do the things they love and then there are the odd kind who are shit at it but keep trying. I’m the latter. Ten years I’ve skated, every day, almost, save for when I’m travelling or in rehab, and I still have balance issues, flexibility issues, physical limitations that no matter how many coaches I go through, how hard I try, I just can’t seem to overcome.

‘I’m always playing catch up, and now, I’m even more behind.'

Otabek leans back against his pillow and closes his eyes. He sees in the darkness the lone figure clad in white and feathers and sequins, spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning on the dark ice, carving out lightning blue streaks with each ‘shink’ his skates make as they scrape against the ice.

‘Yuri, maybe, this is my body telling me that there are no further battles, that this is the drawn out war between my stubborn determination and reality coming to an awful, inevitable end, I—’

‘Shut up!’ Otabek startles as Yuri jumps up from the bench, fists clenched and arms tight, crestfallen and in rage, but for the first time looking resurrected, rekindled. His eyes furious and blazing green. ‘Just, shut up, Beka, who asked you to talk about all of this? How could you—think something—’

Otabek clenches his fist, _drive the knife home,_ he thinks, as the pain in his chest blossoms.

‘This is just me considering my options, Yura, you shouldn’t let it affect you.

Yuri glares at him, opens his mouth to argue, but Otabek continues without pause.

‘I know your fury at Victor Nikiforov, how you feel about his early retirement, even though it was a personal choice and done in consideration for his lover, I know how much regard you hold for the sport and how much you value it and I know that the last situation you want to find yourself in is Victor’s.’

Yuri’s eyebrows furrow as he’s practically panting, his hands shaking at his side, as if the next moment he’s going to grab Otabek’s neck and wring him. But he lets Otabek continue talking, corrosive words destroying the delicate lattice of whatever it is between them, molten lava on ice.

‘I don’t want to be that person, Yuri, no matter how much you think you have to be here. I don’t want to be the reason that ever held you back. Even for one season, even for one competition.’

Yuri squares his shoulders. ‘It’s my decision to stay.’

Otabek swallows, takes in the image of the ethereal creature in front of him, encased in the most brilliant sunlight, as perfect as ever despite fatigue and anger like ripples on the surface of a mountain lake, and senses the imminence of some kind of finality.

His stomach melts as he swallows again:

‘It’s the wrong decision.’

He says.

Yuri digs his fingers into his palm his face twisting as he registers the words. Before he drops his shoulders and turns away. He does something furiously fast with his hands and when he turns around the rims of his eyes are rubbed raw and his face is back to a stone mask.

‘Come on, I’ll wheel you back to your room.’

He grabs the handles of the wheelchair and Otabek, shaking and holding back a tide of emotions himself, reels from the whiplash of forward force.

He had anticipated all of it—Yuri’s fury, the panged look on Yuri's face, the shutting of those heavy gates within Yuri that Otabek knows only cracks open for Otabek and Otabek only—but it doesn’t make it any better. Otabek wants to hurl, he’d rather go through twelve leg surgeries than suffer through the pain within him right now—with his rib-cage squeezing around his organs, with pulsating waves of cold running down his spine as they take the winding, obstacle free path back to the hospital building.

His heart hammers against his chest, and fear courses through his veins, the loneliness and fatigue of decade-long battle against himself closing in on him in that instant, when he recognises, that this is the moment: this moment will redefine not only the way they are around each other, how they think of each other, but the course of his entire life hereonforth.

 

The next time he wakes up from induced unconsciousness Yuri is gone. No note, no messages. Otabek hits his head on the pillow of the hospital bed wishing that it was rock hard, like ice.

 

*

 

#### He’s still 23—

—and he hasn’t spoken a word to Yuri for six months.

The year feels like it’s lasting forever, the hurtling train that is his youth has come to an unexpected stop at what was supposed to be a fueling station, and restoring the speed, like the recovery, took a long time, and rehab took even longer. So when Otabek final stepped back onto the ice he felt weak and weighted, finding inside himself a void where there used to be force.

Much like the silence from his friend.

Muscles have atrophied, and in the course of a few months had forgotten all he had iterated and reiterated to them throughout the years, and his body betrays him in the most profound and intense instance when it throws itself off balance and across the ice as he attempts the simplest sit spin.

As he crawls to his knees, pulling himself up, he realises that he’s merely rejecting what his body already knew to be the truth.

His coach notices him and starts towards the ice. Otabek can’t bring himself to care.

The end is always quieter, less dramatic, and more desparing than one prepares for.

And Otabek promises that it’s the last time he’ll let himself be stung by his own tears.

 

*

 

#### And finally, on one cold autumn eve, he turns 24—

—his birthdays had always been quiet affairs, mostly spent travelling or training after he started with the sport, and before that his memories blur into tales retold to him by his relatives, of cakes and candles that only exist in photos and that of which he can no longer recall the taste or smell.

But now, here in Almaty, those missed moments of celebration and sentimentality has caught up with him in his hometown. His parents walk him back to his apartment after a carefully prepared home meal, he trails behind them as they take a detour through one of the many city parks.

He picks up a newspaper from the bench and Yuri’s name floats above the rest of the columned text as he flips through the sports section.

He puts the paper down like it scalds, and unconsciously touches the outline of his phone in his jeans.

Yuri had sent him a text at midnight, the greeting flanked by excessive emojis of cats and tigers and flowers. He’s on a different time zone, winning another medal, and Otabek smiles as he feels a stone fall into the pit of his chest. Knowing that somewhere in the world, the force of Yuri Plisetsky will continue, like a clout of gust and lightning, to sweep everyone off their senses, dazzling then enthralling and finally converting them with his energy.

His parents lead him to ascend a hill via a twisting ramped path through geometric shaped gardens that have started to yellow. The air is as crisp as the snow that have started to accumulate on the peaks of the mountains. Otabek breathes in and relishes in the rooted feel of home.

They reach the Pavilion at the top of the elevation. His parents look to him and he returns their smile, the shadows of the columns stretch and pass over them like glossy ripples on a still lake.

In the west the mountains incises the horizon into jagged edges. And the sun begins its descent towards them, like a child returning to the embrace of a parent after a day of play. The sky is golden and brilliant, and Otabek rests his feet, the metal in his ankles feel the cold before the sunset even begins.

He waits, for the brilliant display of the violets and orange, for the surreal blinding bright of the distorted rays—a sunset so beautiful, it would be mistaken for a dawn.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ebonynemesis.tumblr.com


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